The march against home demolitions and forced evictions 'Don’t Push Down My House' was scheduled to take place on Saturday April 10, in Benguela, Angola. In a letter to Omunga, the provincial governor of Benguela did not authorize the demonstration because 'the province of Benguela has not registered demolitions, forced land evictions and other acts that collide against the law'.

Pregnant mothers who are HIV-positive could soon find it challenging to access life-saving HIV drugs because Kenya was denied 270 million dollars in funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Global Fund cited the existence of two ministries of health and the jostling between them over control of funds as a major source of concern.`

An engagement ceremony has landed a same-sex Malawian couple in jail, propelled their country into international headlines, and pushed men who have sex with men (MSM) further towards society's risky margins. Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were arrested and charged with sodomy and indecency after their public engagement in late December 2009.

More than one billion people in the developing world suffer chronic undernourishment and without radical changes to global agricultural research systems another billion risk going hungry, says Uma Lele, writing in Science. At the first Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) this week, world leaders in science and society will gather to organise these crucial changes (see Global summit seeks to transform agricultural research).

Trials of a vaccine against the most common cause of pneumonia and meningitis — both leading causes of death in HIV sufferers in Africa — have proved so successful that scientists say it could be a major breakthrough in combating the diseases. The new vaccine protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae which causes pneumonia and, when it invades the bloodstream and brain, causes septicaemia and meningitis.

Dozens of farmers, veterinarians and farm workers have been infected with Rift Valley fever in South Africa, and at least two people have died, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has reported.

US President Obama has signed into law a historic bill to extend medical care to 94 per cent of US citizens, adding another 32 million people to the healthcare system. But these reforms, heavily influenced by corporate interests, will not help the poor, argues Horace Campbell. In a society that sees health as a privilege rather than a right, the bill is only the start of the fight for universal healthcare, Campbell writes.

While agricultural research has made massive strides over the years in helping the world produce more food from the same amount of land, around one in six people, the 1.02 billion hungry, have not noticed.

The International Health Partnership and related initiatives (IHP+)[1] has launched a Civil Society Health Policy Action Fund in 2010. This fund is open to support health organisations, networks and coalitions in 21 IHP countries over a one-year period. The countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zambia.

Up to 11,000 students from various schools in Msambweni and Kwale districts on Kenya's coast have been forced to go home before the Easter holidays after an outbreak of cholera in the region. Bridgide Wambua, the Msambweni District Education Officer, told IRIN the department decided to close down the schools to prevent more students from contracting cholera and other waterborne ailments that had also been reported.

Dozens of families on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital of Mali, are under threat of being evicted from their lands by the Government in favour of a housing project. The cultivation ban, ordered in July 2009, jeopardizes their right to adequate food. Moreover, if the eviction is realized, it will hinder the ability of the families to feed themselves in the long run.

HIV prevalence among Tanzanians who attended secondary school fell sharply between 2004 and 2008, while remaining stable among the country's least educated people, a new study has revealed. "National HIV prevalence has fallen recently in Tanzania. However, the improvements have not been spread evenly throughout the population," James Hargreaves, senior lecturer in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study, said.

Male circumcision modestly reduces the risk of an HIV-positive man transmitting HIV to a female sex partner, an analysis of the Partners in Prevention study published in the journal AIDS suggests. The risk of contracting HIV was 40% lower for the partners of circumcised men than uncircumcised men, but this reduction in risk was not statistically significant.

HIV-positive Bupe Mwamba, 22, lies next to her newborn baby girl at the rural clinic she just gave birth in and wonders if her baby is HIV-positive too. She has been for counselling throughout her antenatal check-ups and knows there is a chance her baby girl may be HIV-negative. But it still does not eliminate her fears and anxieties.

The UN World Food Programme has denied a claim that up to half the food aid to Somalia was being diverted to Islamist militants and corrupt contractors. WFP officials said there was no evidence to back up the claim made in a report by a UN monitoring group.

The World Health Organisation said today it was investigating reports of suspected cases of the previously eradicated disease smallpox in eastern Uganda. Smallpox is an acute contagious disease and was one of the world’s most feared sicknesses until it was officially declared eradicated worldwide in 1979.

Burundi will receive a grant of US$ 135 million over the next five years, under the eighth round of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, official sources said in Bujumbura. The funds will be allocated to the "Intensification and Decentralization Program me for the Fight against HIV/AIDS (PRIDE)," said Burundian first Vice-President in charge of Political, Administrative and Security Affairs, Yves Sahinguvu.

In response to Richard Dowden’s article , Sza Sza Zelleke writes: ‘It is clear that guns, and the men who sell food aid to buy them, are not the solution to Africa’s problems. What Africans needs is more accountability and less arms.’

West Africa can meet its food needs through regional trade, most agricultural experts say, if countries keep their borders open for the free flow of staple grains, especially in times of heightened stress, whether climatic, economic, or brought on by conflict.

As of 15 March, 15 districts nationwide were affected with cholera, with 663 cases confirmed since January, according to a Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation update. At least 15 deaths have been recorded. Worst affected are parts of Coast, Eastern and Rift Valley provinces. Kajiado District, in Rift Valley, has 177 cases.